35 Nails and No Pain

This Friday Night, I was able to bend 35 60D nails (Grip Right brand, if you care) consecutively. This is a new record for me, surpassing the previous 32, which had been done in anger, and which caused me to lose a fairly large chunk of skin on my right index finger.

I use a pair of @ 4 inch flexible PVC lengths (think hard rubber) for hand protection, as this facilitates lots of bends in short order. I've experimented with the Iron Mind cordura nylon wraps, and they work fine, but I'm too impatient to unroll and re-roll after every bend. I want to bend in bulk. I don't feel that the PVC lengths give me a significant mechanical advantage over the softer wraps, but they do let me get my bend on without any fiddling.

For this 35 nail adventure, I wrapped my index fingers with athletic tape, since that had been the point of injury before. It worked like it was supposed to, and all was well.

I was surprised to find that, after 35 nails, I wasn't flagging too badly. If I kept my form strict, the overhand fold technique was still letting me squish the nails with good authority. I was starting to feel little twinges of strain going on in my wrists, but nothing untoward. I could have probably bent several more nails, had there been life, love, or honor at stake.

After bending, I did the rest of my hand workout which was:

25 closes per hand with the COC #1 grippers
15 closes per hand with the COC #1.5 grippers
3 closes per hand (failing on the left) with the COC #2 grippers.
To burn out, I did 10 more closes with each hand with the COC #1s.

It was surprising that I barely popped a sweat by the end of this hand work. Other than bottoming out on the #2 grippers, I was very pleased.

I feel that my idea of bending 50 consecutive 60Ds is alive and well. 100 is my ultimate goal, but that's a ways out there, as well as being an expensive proposition in regard to the nails it'll take to get to that goal.

Fallout from the workout was minimal. I had a small blister in the center of my right palm, where the point of pressure tends to come down, but there was no unusual soreness or difficulty the next day.

It looks like it'll soon be time for me to get another length of the flexible PVC, as I've just about worn through the ones I've been using. They've bent nearly a full 50 lbs of 60D nails at this point, and I can feel the points and heels of the nails pretty sharply sometimes. The PVC only has so much ability to come back from being stressed. Perhaps when I'm through with the rest of my box of 60Ds, I'll get the material to make a few more.

...and that's the news on the bending front.

As to the general workouts, I'm doing well and making fair progress in that area, though I'm not losing as much weight as I'd like to a this point. I figure that my muscle tissues are, growing in response to the stimulus, and that's preventing any weight loss action. Oh, well. It's about getting better, not always lighter. I'll keep at it.

In the writing arena, things are a little slow. It seems like the weeks end so darn quickly that I don't have the time to do what I'd like to do. It's that balance thing. It's a process.

Anyhoo, that's all I have to say for now. Hope you're all well.